Unlikely Crossovers: Pulp Fiction Edition
by Gallathea
Summary: One-shot. Totally frivolous absurdity. Rated M, but not for sex scenes. It's Tarantino's fault.


I sat at home one Monday after my shift at Merlotte's, curling up comfortably in front of the television after slipping _Pulp Fiction _into the DVD player. It wasn't really my kind of movie, which is why I hadn't seen it when it came out in the first place, but people still made references to regularly, and I was feeling left out. After about the hundredth time somebody came into the bar and placed an order for a "Royale with Cheese," I gave in.

"What does it feel like… to keeel a man?" a taxi driver was asking Bruce Willis in what even I knew was a hopelessly exaggerated accent, and I had to snort. I had killed before, though I hadn't always intended to. I just sort of happened to have a stake when my ex-boyfriend's vamp ho maker had jumped on me. I just happened to have a knife when some guy in the Witch War decided to press his neck into my weapon. I just happened to have a shotgun ready when the shifter version of Glenn Close's character in _Fatal Attraction_ had decided to ambush me with a gun in my own kitchen.

I still had a pang of guilt over that last one, but I couldn't completely fathom why. Debbie Pelt's own parents seemed to understand why I'd killed her better than I did, and while shooting the were-lynx had probably knocked me out of the running for a real relationship with Alcide Herveaux, I had to admit I was a lot happier with Eric than I ever thought I could be, so Alcide, Schmalcide. I imagined what Gran might have said to me if she'd known the circumstances behind Debbie's death, and I took some comfort in the idea that she might have squared her shoulders like the consummate Stackhouse woman she was and tell me, "Sookie, honey: some people just need killin'."

A knock on the door broke me out of my thoughts, and I checked the peephole—always check the peephole if you live in my house—and saw Pam on my porch.

"Hello, Sookie," she greeted me, breezily placing an air kiss somewhere in the vicinity of my cheek. "I see you're watching Quentin Tarantino tonight."

"You're a fan?" I asked her.

"Of course!" she responded. _Duh_, I thought to myself.

"I have a gift for you," she informed me as I heated a TrueBlood for her and then settled back in on the couch next to her. She held out a small box, and I couldn't help but eye her a little suspiciously as I opened it. It held a tiny gold Thor's Hammer studded with beautiful, tiny diamonds, and it hung on a feminine chain.

"This isn't from you, is it?" I wanted to know, and she shook her head. "So why didn't Eric bring me this his ownself?"

"Well, Sookie, there are some special circumstances behind this gift that make it a rather… delicate matter," she said carefully. I motioned for her to go on.

"This necklace, as you have probably guessed, is a symbol of Eric's heritage. It also has a long history. It belonged to Eric's last bonded human companion, and it symbolized his love for and devotion to her."

My eyes widened—I hadn't even known Eric had ever been bonded to somebody else, though I suppose it was inevitable that he would have been in his long centuries as a vampire. You didn't get to be a thousand years old without working your way around the block a few times. "What was her name?"

"Fabienne," Pam told me. "She lived before my time. She was a young French Protestant—Huguenots, they were called—who was killed in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in the late 1500s. Eric was distraught after her death, but he vowed to treasure the necklace as a token of their union and as a memento of emotions he thought he would be unable to feel again." I felt a twinge of jealousy and realized it was completely irrational to feel envious of a woman who had not only been dead for over 500 years but who had also died in a massacre, but hey. Who said jealousy is rational?

"It is a great honor that he wishes to bestow this gift upon you," she continued. "You have brought him a happiness that he thought would be impossible for him to attain. The necklace is a symbol of his commitment to you, much in the same way that humans consider wedding rings symbols of commitment."

I tried to sort through my emotions, but I had to admit I was pretty confused at this point. It was clear this was a weighty moment, but the more Pam told me, the less I understood about why Eric wouldn't just let me know the history of this necklace on his own. If he basically was making a permanent commitment to me by giving it to me, shouldn't he be here himself? As much as I liked Pam, this really didn't seem like appropriate emotional territory for us to be covering.

She seemed to pick up on my growing concern. "And also," she went on, a little more quickly, "there are some other… ah… circumstances… behind how the necklace has come to be in Eric's possession for so long."

"Spill it, Pam."

"Well, as you know," she explained, "vampires have only recently come out as part of mainstream society. In the past, we've had other arrangements: at times, we have nested, and at other times, we have tended to travel as nomads, either singly or in pairs. Our arrangements have always been affected by conditions such as human wars, supernatural wars, famines, and plagues. Most of us have, at one point or another, found ourselves on the move for significant periods of time when we were in constant danger."

"We're not to the pertinent part yet, are we?" I asked, happy to work in a word from my calendar but nervous about where this was going.

Pam smiled. "In certain conditions, the only way to ensure possession of a small, treasured object is to be rather… creative about transporting it and keeping it safe."

I looked up at the TV and saw Christopher Walken handing a young boy a watch. _Oh, no. Oh, no, no_, I thought, knowing I didn't want to hear what was coming next. I groaned before she even began her sentence.

"Yes, Sookie—in order to keep this talisman safe, Eric was forced for quite some time to carry it in his ass."

I looked at her as if she'd just sprouted wings and started speaking Chicken. "My Viking," I said slowly, wanting to make sure I understood, "put this little hammer," and Pam nodded, "up his ass?"

"He knew it might be a rather sensitive area to broach with you," she told me cheerfully, "and he wanted to give you a chance to say no without having to say it directly to him."

Damn straight it was a "sensitive area."

"For how long?" I asked, trying to sound calm.

"Not the whole time!" she answered. "A hundred of those years, perhaps? Give or take?"

I had picked the wrong time to take a sip of my sweet tea, and I choked as I desperately attempted to breathe and somehow keep the tea from coming up and out my nose. I was trying to be the shepherd, here—trying real hard to be the shepherd. However, I was finding that a _wee_ bit difficult after learning that my boyfriend wanted to give me a sentimental token of his affection, but it had happened to be in his ass longer than I had been on this earth. I guess a diamond really was forever if a vampire kept it locked up in his own personal "vault."

"Plus," she added, "there's the matter of the time when I had, what would you say, 'stewardship' of the necklace."

"Oh, _shit_!" I exclaimed, glad I'd had the sense to keep the sweet tea on the coffee table.

"Of course not, Sookie! As you know, our physiology is quite similar to yours, but we do not have your human needs. Besides, did you think we actually would have used banks during the Great Depression?" she smirked. I'd never had enough money to worry much about the rise and fall of the stock market, but I was having my own personal Black Monday here.

Well, I certainly had some issues to consider: love and devotion versus… ass-smuggling. Commitment and affection versus… ass-smuggling. Dramatically expanded historical sensibilities and knowledge of Eric's ultimate pragmatism versus… pragmatic ass-smuggling. I mean, really, this was something I'd only seen happen (before tonight) in shows about young women who got roped into international drug-trafficking schemes and ended up spending their twenties in Colombian prisons.

I sighed heavily, picking up the gorgeous little piece of jewelry and looking at the dangling hammer as Pam gave me a glimmer of a genuine smile.

"Go on," she urged. "It's quite clean, I assure you."

My Southern belle squeamishness was still a factor, but I supposed that compared to breaking into the Jackson vampire compound to retrieve Bill from torture at the hands of his maker, rushing into a building that was about to explode, or running over an ancient vampire with my car, this—in the scheme of things—a pretty small qualm to overcome for love. I pulled the necklace over my head and admired the tiny Thor's Hammer that now dangled from my neck.

"He'll be here in half an hour," Pam said abruptly, rising to leave and looking as pleased with herself as I'd ever seen her look.

As the familiar warmth and comfort I always felt in Eric's proximity flooded over me as he drew near to my house, I thought to myself while I walked to the door that it was a darn good thing I had always really loved my Viking's butt.


End file.
